the account given of an order of men among the GETES, who practifed celibacy, and were nothwithstanding the moft religious fanatics. A method of reasoning, which would lead us to entertain a bad idea of the devotion of monks; did we not know by an experience, not fo common, perhaps, in STRABO's days, that one may practice celibacy, and profefs chastity; and yet maintain the closest connections and most entire fympathy with that timorous and pious fex.

SECT. IV. Deities not confidered as creators or formers of the world.

THE only point of theology in which we shall find a confent of mankind almoft univerfal, is, that there is invifible, intelligent power, in the world: But whether this power be fupreme or fubordinate, whether confined to one being, or diftributed among several, what attributes, qualities, connections, or principles of action, ought to be ascribed to those beings; concerning all these points, there is the widest difference in the popular fyftems of theology. Our ancestors in EUROPE, before the revival of letters, believed, as we do at prefent, that there was one fupreme God, the author of nature, whofe power, though in itself uncontrollable, was yet often exerted by the interpofition of his angels and fubordinate minifters, who executed his facred purposes. But. they also believed, that all nature was full of other invifible powers; fairies, goblins, elves, fprights; beings ftronger and mighter than men, but much inferior to the celeftial natures, who furround the throne of God. Now, fuppofe that any one, in thofe ages, had denied the existence of God and of his angels; would not his impiety juftly have deferved the appellation of atheism, even though he had ftill allowed, by fome odd capricious reafoning, that the popular stories of elves and fairies were juft and well-grounded? The difference, on the one hand, between fuch a perfon and a genuine theift is infinite

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ly greater than that, on the other, between him and one that abfolutely excludes all invifible intelligent power. And it is a fallacy, merely from the cafual refemblance of names, without any conformity of meaning, to rank fuch oppofite opinions under the fame denomination.

To any one who confiders juftly of the matter, it will appear, that the gods of all polytheifts are no better than the elves or fairies of our ancestors, and merit as little any pious worship or veneration. These pretended religionifts are really a kind of fuperftitious atheifts, and acknowledge no being that correfponds to our idea of a deity. No firft principle of mind or thought: No fupreme government and adminiftration: No divine contrivance or intention in the fabric of the world.

The CHINESE, when their prayers are not answered, beat their idols. The deities of the LAPLANDERS are any large ftone which they meet with of an extraordinary fhapet. The EGYPTIAN mythologists, in order to account for animal worship, faid, that the gods, pursued by the violence of earth-born men, who were their enemies, had formerly been obliged to disguise themselves under the femblance of beafts. The CAUNII, a nation in the LESSER ASIA, refolving to admit no ftrange gods among them, regularly, at certain feafons, affembled themselves completely armed, beat the air with their lances, and proceeded in that manner to their frontiers; in order, as they said, to expel the foreign deities §. Not even the immortal gods, faid fome GERMAN nations to CÆSAR, are a match for the SUEVI.

Many ills, fays DIONE in HOMER to VENUS wounded by DIOMEDE, many ills, my daughter, have the gods inflicted on men: And many ills, in return, have

Pere le Compte. + Regnard, Voïage de Laponie, Diod. Sic. lib. i. Lucian. de Sacrificiis. Ovid alludes to the fame tradition, Metam. lib. v. 1. 321. So alfo MANILIUS, lib. iv. Herodot, lib. i. Cæf. Comment. de bello Gallico, lib. iv.

have men inflicted on the gods*. We need but open any claffic author to meet with these grofs reprefentations of the deities; and LONGINUS with reason obferves, that fuch ideas of the divine nature, if literally taken, contain a true atheism.

Some writers have been surprised, that the impieties of ARISTOPHANES fhould have been tolerated, nay publicly acted and applauded by the ATHENIANS; a people fo fuperftitious and fo jealous of the public religion, that, at that very time, they put SOCRATES to death for his imagined incredulity. But these writers do not confider, that the ludicrous, familiar images, under which the gods are represented by that comic poet, instead of appearing impious, were the genuine lights in which the ancients conceived their divinities. What conduct can be more criminal or mean, than that of JUPITER in the AMPHITRION? Yet that play, which reprefented his gallant exploits, was fuppofed fo agreeable to him, that it was always acted in ROME by public authority, when the state was threatened with peftilence, famine, or any general calamity & The ROMANS fuppofed, that, like all old letchers, he would be highly pleased with the recital of his former feats of prowefs and vigour, and that no topic was fo proper upon which to flatter his vanity.

The LACEDEMONIANS, fays XENOPHON ||, always, during war, put up their petitions very early in the morning, in order to be beforehand with their enemies, and, by being the first folicitors, pre-engage the gods in their favour. We may gather from SENECA**, that it was ufual for the votaries in the temples to make interest with the beadle or fexton, that they might have a feat near the image of the deity, in order to be the best heard in their prayers and applica

* Lib. ix. 382.

+ Cap. ix.

tions

Pere Brumoy, Theatre des Grecs; & Fontenelle, Hiftoire

des Oracles.

§ Arnob.. Lib. vii.

De Laced. Rep.

** Epift. xli.

tions to him. The TYRIANS, when befieged by ALEXANDER, threw chains on the ftatue of HERCULES, to prevent that deity from deferting to the enemy *. AUGUSTUS, having twice loft his fleet by ftorms, forbad NEPTUNE to be carried in proceffion along with the other gods; and fancied, that he had fufficiently revenged himself by that expedient†. After GERMANICUS's death, the people were fo enraged at their gods, that they ftoned them in their temples; and openly renounced all allegiance to them.

To afcribe the origin and fabric of the universe to thefe imperfect beings, never enters into the imagination of any polytheist or idolater. HESIOD, whose writings, with thofe of HOMER, contained the canonical fyftem of the heathen§; HESIOD, I fay, fuppofes gods and men to have sprung equally from the unknown powers of nature. And throughout the whole theogony of that author, PANDORA is the only inftance of creation, or a voluntary production; and fhe too was formed by the gods merely from defpight to PROMETHEUS, who had furnished men with ftolen fire from the celestial regions T. The ancient mythologists, indeed, feem throughout to have rather embraced the idea of generation than that of creation or formation; and to have thence accounted for the origin of this universe.

ÖVID, who lived in a learned age, and had been inftructed by philofophers in the principles of a divine creation or formation of the world; finding that fuch an idea would not agree with the popular mythology which he delivers, leaves it, in a manner, loofe and detached from his fyftem. Quifquis fuit ille Deorum**? Which-ever of the gods it was, fays he, that diffipated the chaos, and introduced order into

Quint. Curtius, lib. iv. cap. 3. + Suet. in vita Aug. cap. 16. Herodot. lib. ii. Lucian. Jupiter

Diod. Sic. lib. xvii.

Id. in vita Cal. cap. 5. confutatus, de luctu, Saturn. &c.

1 Ως ομόθεν γεγκατι θεοι θνητοι τ' ανθρωποι. Hef Opera & Dies, l. 108.

Theog. 1, 570.

** Metamorph. lib. i. 1. 32.

into the univerfe. It could neither be SATURN, hẹ knew, nor JUPITER, nor NEPTUNE, nor any of the received deities of paganifm. His theological fyftem had taught him nothing upon that head; and he leaves the matter equally undetermined.

DIODORUS SICULUS*, beginning his work with an enumeration of the most reafonable opinions concerning the origin of the world, makes no mention of a deity or intelligent mind; though it is evident from his history, that he was much more prone to fuperftition than to irreligion. And in another paffage, talking of the ICHTHYOPHAGI, a nation in INDIA, he fays, that, there being fo great difficulty in accounting for their defcent, we muft conclude them to be aborigenes, without any beginning of their generation, propagating their race from all eternity; as fome of the phyfiologers, in treating of the origin of nature, have juftly observed." But in fuch fubjects as thefe," adds the hiftorian, "which ex"ceed all human capacity, it may well happen, "that those who difcourfe the most know the least; "reaching a fpecious appearance of truth in their reafonings, while extremely wide of the real truth and "matter of fact."

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A ftrange fentiment in our eyes, to be embraced by a profeffed and zealous religionist! But it was merely by accident, that the question concerning the origin of the world did ever in ancient times enter into religious fyftems, or was treated of by theologers. The philofophers alone made profeffion of delivering fyftems of this kind; and it was pretty late too before these bethought themfelves of having recourfe to a mind or fupreme intelligence, as the first caufe

* Lib. i.

† Id. ibid.

The fame author, who can thus account for the origin of the world without a Deity, efteems it impious to explain, from phyfical caufes, the common accidents of life, earthquakes, inundations, and tempefts; and devoutly afcribes thefe to the anger of JUPITER or NEPTUNE. A plain proof whence he derived his ideas of religion. See lib. xv. p. 364. Ex edit. RHODOMANNI.